It seems this is not really a thing, or I'm not looking for the right thing. Anyone know if this exists, or what might suit my needs the most?
Currently looking for an alternative to my external 3.5" drive to plug into my laptop dock to a) be quieter; and b) faster. I'd really prefer to not have to plug them all in individually and have macos combine them.
The intention is this external drive would then become the backup disk. I need minimum 8TB+ space, and I was thinking of 3 or more 2.5" 4TB SSDs which seem the best value option right now? So given they would also be backed up, plan is to have all the disks show up as a single volume and just span the space across the disks?
NVMe still just seem at a premium right now that I'm not sure it's worth it... plus I don't actually need THAT speed. Also with something like 4 in an enclosure, I'd worry about the heat and degradation that way.
I've always used a NAS as my backup device. I suppose I could look more into NAS as the file server too... though then I'd be looking at > 1gbe port or upgrade... and a new 4-bay nas is just so expensive to start with!
DS923+ (seems most recommended?) + upgrade card + (maybe upgrade ram?) + disks... yeah...